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Wednesday, September 4, 2013

BB Dabo Paints Picture of Gambia’s Sick Economy

BB Darboe

The Gambia’s former Finance Minister has painted a gloomy picture
of the country’s sick economy, arguing that the government could no
longer “disguise the phenomenal increase” of the country’s “domestic and
external debt over the past two decades.”
“We all know that the Yahya Jammeh government is notorious for
deceitfulness, and for the opacity, or total lack of transparency, of
its governance practices,” said Bakebba Camara, the Vice President of
the Campaign for Democratic Change Gambia (CDCG) who deputized for the
CDCG Chairman Mr. Bakary Bunja Dabo.
“But the truth can no longer be hidden behind a mask. Over the past
few years, on each occasion of presenting the annual budget, successive
Finance Ministers have been forced to groan under the burden of debt
servicing as well as to admit to growing concern over the size of the
debt stock,” he said.
Mr. Dabo said the Gambia’s 2012 domestic, which represents over 31%
of the national Gross Domestic Product, was higher than the 13% the
military junta inherited in 1994. He said “domestic debt arises when
revenue raised from taxation [direct and indirect] cannot cover public
expenditure, and the Government is forced to either overdraw its
accounts with the Central Bank or to borrow from the general public by
selling various types of loan stocks, [sometimes called gilt-edged
stock] e.g. treasury bills.” 0
Dabo said almost all countries at some point experience budget
deficits and are forced into domestic indebtedness but a responsible
government maintains a careful watch on the trend, and prudently acts to
keep matters at manageable levels.
“In the Gambia’s case, the serious deterioration cannot be the result
of prudent or competent management of the economy. Instead, the
situation came about through incompetence or recklessness or both; there
is no other way of putting it truthfully,” he said, adding that the
situation “looks even more worrying when we scrutinize the pattern of
public expenditure. 0
He said the allocation of 25 of the 2013 budget to expenditure on the
President’s Office is three times more than what is allocated to
agriculture, the most important sector of the economy that employees 75%
of the population. “Similarly, more is allocated to “defence and
security” than on basic and secondary education, while the Ministry of
the Interior gets as much as the public health services. And the trend
continues, with judiciary at the bottom of the heap,” he said. 0
Such a budget allocation, Mr. Dabo continued, reflects that the
Jammeh regime’s true priority is not feeding the nation or dispensing
sound education to prepare our children for the future or an efficient
health delivery system or the well-being of the population in any form.
Their true priority is the person of Yahya Jammeh, his security and his
regime’s security. That is why we are burdened with a pompous
President’s Office, an over-bearing and bungling leviathan, whose
function is to pamper the over-bloated ego of a megalomaniac with absurd
illusions of grandeur. If this means squandering our poor country’s
scarce resources to feed his daily cravings, so be it. In that regard,
excesses indulged in include laying on an office unit for the First
Lady, operating fleet of presidential aircrafts, maintaining three
presidential palaces in Banjul, Kanilai and Georgetown, and crowning the
outfit with a post of a whole Minister for Presidential Affairs.” 0
Mr. Dabo painted a gloomy picture of the Gambia’s disturbing external
debt, which almost tripled from 1994 to 2011. Ironically, he said, the
bulk of the debt came in the form of loans contracted under the most
non-transparent indeed questionable of ways notorious for the in-built
opportunities they offer for offering and taking kick-backs.
Agreements creating most of such loans never went to Parliament for
ratification, as required by law, or if they did were simply
rubber-stamped without any serious scrutiny. To add insult to injury,
the loan funds secured rarely went to the productive sectors to help the
economy grow. Rather, they in the main went to finance dubious
political projects such as the GRTS, or non-performing items of
equipment such as the Barra ferries or under-equipped infrastructure
such as hospitals and classroom blocks etc.” 0
Other speakers at the symposium included James Bahoum, Seedy Ceesay
and Pa Nderry M’bai. Bamba Serign Mass moderated the program, which took
place in London.

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Name: Abdoulie Nget. Born from the Northern Part of the Gambia nearly three decades ago in a village Called Mbappa Mariga, which is situated 130 kilometers away from the Gambian Capital Banjul.
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